Something He Could Live With
by CSIHuntermom
Summary: "He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there..." Set after Catherine's last episode. A reflection if you will  it's almost shippy but not quite  of D.B. and Catherine's relationship.


**A/N : **Thanks to my beta, rockcliffchic81 for looking this over. Set after Catherine's last episode. It's a reflection on D.B and Catherine's relationship.

Something He Could Live With

He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there, an hour, possibly two. Maybe it was longer, D.B. Russell didn't care.

He looked at her body, her blanched, white dead body. The body of a young woman he promised to help. He couldn't save her, she died anyway.

Maybe it was her hair, her smile or the fact that she died at the hands of a sick and twisted doctor that made him sigh out loud.

Sara had come and gone, said her "_I'm Sorry_" to him hoping that would ease his pain some. It did, for the moment but then he went back to staring at the young dead woman on the autopsy table and his heart began to ache.

It ached to hear her footsteps walking down the hall. It ached to hear her laugh or to swing her read hair as she walked. It ached to hear her theory of why this doctor, a man people trusted to take care of them during their last moments on earth while cancer took over their bodies, and how she would say something cleaver about the way the doctor dressed up his victims to look like his mother. Basically, D.B. Russell ached for Catherine Willows.

He found solace in her empty office. It was empty but somehow he still felt her. Everyone did. That's why Greg and Nick both peered in at the beginning of the shift to pay their respects, if you will, to Catherine. So it wasn't any surprise that he found himself there as well.

He sighed as he waited to hear her voice on the other end of the line.

"_Did I wake you_?" He could just imagine her red hair all tussled and the sexy sound of her sleepy voice. That wasn't the case, she was awake. He could tell by her animated tone. She had already had her coffee (_not as good as they do it in Seattle_) crossed his mind momentarily as she told him she was heading out to work.

He went on to tell her about the case, the one that wouldn't let him be. He told his wife-that word had to come up at some point, that there are certain things he had to leave at the office. Cases that were 'too much' he told her he would leave at work. He had to do just that, leave it at work. But there was only one person he could talk to about it, before he did in fact, go home; Catherine.

"_I lost one today Catherine_." The words he couldn't tell his wife but he could tell her.

"_I wanted to talk to you, I knew you'd understand_." More words, just for Catherine.

D.B. Russell was in love with his wife all his adult life. When they got married, he thought they were no longer kids, but adults ready to make their way in the world. How silly that thought is now as he looked at his own children not much younger than when he and their mother married. And remained happily married.

But, people come into your life for a reason. Either they guide you, they teach you or they have some general impact on you. D.B. Russell wanted to believe that Catherine Willows was in his life for a reason.

Was he in love with her? The idea of her? Perhaps. Did he want her to leave CSI and join the FBI and teach them how to 'fly right'? No, of course not. Did he want to hold her close and take in the smell of her rose and vanilla scent? Yes. And it was that that he missed. Their connection, their ease with one another and how they often fought like an old married couple, more so than even he and his own wife did. More proof that she was meant to be in his life.

He often would gaze at the picture he took of her the night the mayor was shot. The one where she's wearing a black dress and her hair fell down in cascades of red around her shoulders. He had to be quick and stealthy for he didn't want anyone else to catch him looking at her picture either.

And that's what was hurting the most, that unexplainable tug on his heart when he stood in her empty office. The realization hit him, that she's three time zones away and is sleeping peacefully.

The funny part, he wanted so much to be sleeping next to her, to wake up next to her and see her smile. For her to tell him about her day and about the ones that she lost. He wanted that, despite his happy marriage. He wanted to be next to Catherine.

So there he stood in her empty office trying to connect with her trying to quell the ache in his heart.

D.B. smiled and took in her office once more before turning to leave. Yes, she was no longer at the CSI crime lab, but as long as he could talk to her, it's like she had not left his life. And that was something he could live with.


End file.
